


Put your Stampler in a box

by kineticallyanywhere



Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Magic Terry Jr., based on a possible future, but not really confirmed, potential Character Death, sort of a
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25619809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kineticallyanywhere/pseuds/kineticallyanywhere
Summary: What’s a DM to do when a PC goes down too early in a major boss fight?Take the “Ron Stampler” part of your brain, and put him away. Just for a bit! Just put him in a box--a cozy box, sure. Not a coffin! Just a nice cozy box. Maybe it’s padded with pants. But put him in a box and dust away his dandruff and clean the slate. Put him to the side. Just for a bit I’ve got something else for you. Okay?Okay.
Relationships: Ron Stampler & Terry Jr.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 55





	Put your Stampler in a box

**Author's Note:**

> I cranked this out in like one sitting during a confluence of Stampler Angst and wanting Magic Terry and thinking about how you'd get a player into the mindset to play another character while their regular one is out of commission

Take the “Ron Stampler” part of your brain, and put him away. Just for a bit! Just put him in a box--a cozy box, sure. Not a coffin! Just a nice cozy box. Maybe it’s padded with pants. But put him in a box and dust away his dandruff and clean the slate. Put him to the side. Just for a bit I’ve got something else for you. Okay?

Okay. 

Your dad was everything to you. He was brave and he was strong and he was bold. He taught you how to fight your battles and to be kind and to take no shit and to remember your “please” and “thank yous”. When you were hurting he told you to cry. When it was over he asked you why and you could tell him. Your dad was safe. 

When you wanted to give up he taught you how to stand up instead. He went big or he went home and so do you. He believed in you. With every fiber--every atom every molecule every drop of water and blood in your body you _know_ he believed in you. 

When school was too hard, he believed in you. When kids were too mean he believed in you. When adults were too strict he believed in you. When you did wrong and got in trouble and deserved it he believed in you because he _knew_ there was something inside you that was _amazing_. 

He told it to you every day. 

But he can’t, anymore. He’s dead. 

It was years ago but it feels like yesterday because time simply has not passed since then. The world stopped, that day. That moment. You don’t remember where you were when you found out. It should be a pivotal moment, shouldn’t it? You should remember. You can guess you were at school. Your friends said there was a phone call, that you went home early, but you don’t remember. 

You just remember lying in bed in your dark room. You remember realizing that the world had stopped. You remember thinking that you didn’t care to get it moving again. 

Your mom is there. Some other people are there. Family, friends, other people you know, some people you don’t. They come and they go but Mom is there. That’s fine. Time has stopped here, in this place. It’s just you and your mom and that’s fine. There’s an empty spot, but that’s fine. Nothing moves so nothing has to hurt. That’s comfortable. 

Time has stopped. 

And then there’s someone else there. And he doesn’t _go_. 

He’s supposed to _go_ like everyone else, but time isn’t passing and suddenly he’s there all the time. He’s there when you get home, he picks you up from school sometimes. You feel like you’re missing steps because he was _supposed_ to be like everyone else, he was supposed to _go_ , but instead you wake up one day and you remember a whole ceremony celebrating how this guy has shoved himself into you and Mom’s frozen time. Your safe place, your comfortable place. 

You know he’s trying to put himself in that empty spot, that spot that _shouldn’t be touched_ because it doesn’t _belong to him_ and when Terry tries to clean that spot of _him_ it _burns_. It _hurts_ and you want him _gone_. 

And then, years later, you see your dad. 

No time has passed since you’ve seen your dad. 

Of course not. Because time without him didn’t matter. That time was bad and it doesn’t have to be bad now so it doesn’t matter. 

But it does. It matters because you stopped time rather than face the fact that your dad is dead. He’s _dead_. He’s _gone_ and he’s _never_ coming home

That spot is empty. It will always be empty. But maybe. If time can move, just a little bit. The house can get bigger. 

That spot is empty and it hurts and your dad is dead. 

But this new guy… he believes in you. He believes in you and he loves you and he thinks that you’re amazing. 

So maybe, in some small way, your dad is alive. Just a bit at a time, time is moving again. 

It’s disorienting, at first. Things have consequences, which is scary, but they’re pretty alright sometimes, which is good. You let yourself see new places and hang out with the other kids and think about what Dad (the spinoff, nothing like the original but it has its charms) is doing. But every time you meet up he comes back safe. 

So you think you should be confused, that time has stopped again. You were supposed to be _wrong_ it was supposed to be _fine_ this wasn’t supposed to happen _again_ you _can’t do this again_

This world feels different from your own. You noticed it right away. There’s something in the air that brushes your fingertips and tickles your mind. You’ve met some people who have talked to you and told you what it is and how it works. You realize that it’s dangerous and the hairpin trigger you’ve felt beneath your fingers is dangerous so for the most part you haven’t touched it. 

Actions have consequences. 

Or at least they did, for a while, when time was moving again. But now time has stopped and it’s not _comfortable_ anymore. It _hurts_. You made the mistake of letting it move and now that it’s stopped again you can’t _live with this anymore_

The hair-pin trigger has shattered in your fists. The world itself responds to you, leaping out and cascading around you in arcs of light and energy. It tears through the surroundings with joyful abandon you cannot feel. None of that matters. Wild destruction is supposed to feel good but all you feel is rage. Some new level of anger that you never knew was fathomable and multiplies every time the light passes over the body at your feet.

The body broken by the hit that was meant for you. But your dad couldn’t have that, could he? 

You can’t do this again. You _can’t_ do this again you _**refuse**_ to do this _again_

Another man--living, breathing, staring--stands in front of you. This man has put you through hell. This man has put your _dad_ through hell. 

You hardly know him, but he cannot possibly hate you as much as you _hate_ him. You want to take everything you’ve ever felt, everything you’ve ever _not_ felt, every searing coal in your chest that is erupting out of your _eyes_ \-- you want to press it into his body until there is no body, no _soul_ left to contend with. You will take this magic by the reigns and you will _write him out of history_ if that’s what it takes, it doesn’t _matter_ what happens to you because time has stopped and _you refuse to do this again_

Your name is Terrance Prince Junior-Stampler, time has stopped, and actions have no consequences.

What do you do? 

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think Ron survives this. (( Willy does not :) ))


End file.
